I started Hike Mt Shasta 4.5 years ago, and it has been an exciting adventure to bring it to where it is now. Though it matters little in the big scheme of things, Hike Mt Shasta has reached a notable milestone. On June 10th, my little website received its millionth view. I am not certain what the actual significance of this is, but it seems like something important enough to memorialize. This also provides me an opportunity to say thank you to everyone who has helped get the site to where it is today. I deeply appreciate all the support and encouragement that has been tendered. While it is always edifying to get feedback on how Hike Mt Shasta has been a useful tool, it is also fulfilling to know that it has been employed to help people decide how and where to invest their time. Indeed, drawing attention to the incredible slice of creation that is Mount Shasta and the mountains that surround it is the essence of what this endeavor has been about. Again, a deep thanks to everyone who has found value and enrichment here. Most of all, however, I offer a deep and humble thanks to my wonderful wife, who is patient with her odd map- and taxonomy-obsessed husband. Thanks Beautiful!

It seems to me to be a good time to look back and consider some of the notable moments from the past 4.5 years. I hope everyone may find some interesting tidbits from the dark recesses of Hike Mt Shasta. The backwaters of the site are kind of murky and don’t often see the light of day!

Perhaps a good place to start a brief retrospective is with my very first post on the blog. I knew from the outset that I wanted content on the site to be focused more on the land and the trails and less (or not at all) on myself and my own experiences. Yet I was new to blogging and not sure what I was supposed to write about on an ongoing basis. So, I began at the beginning and recounted my own journey from Sonoma County to Texas and back to California, where I ended up in Mount Shasta. My time in the Lone Star State altered my perceptions of beauty and really began my development as both a writer and a (wannabe) wilderness philosopher. Some of the pockets of wild land where I found refuge while in Texas, places like the Wichita Mountains and the Caprock canyons, remain precious to me.

Of course, once I got into the blogging, it wasn’t long before I broke down and began looking for connections between Mount Shasta and Yosemite, between my home and my most cherished place. This wasn’t hard, since John Muir was forthright in his love and admiration for California’s most magnificent mountain. It also gave rise to what amounts to my only trip report on Hike Mt Shasta. Until I wrote a series of reports on the trips I took during the summer of 2016, this was the only time I have written a post discussing what I have been up to. However, I feel like documenting trips that are undertaken for my books is essentially different to recounting what I am doing for pure recreation. As always, it is my preference to keep focus on the mountains.

Despite wanting the mountains to be the center of attention, every now and then I can’t resist putting up pictures of my kids. They are a challenging bunch but they are always up for an adventure and are a lot of fun. It has been a blessing watching them grow up in this beautiful place.

Yes, we hauled them in to Tangle Blue Lake.

The biggest impact that Hike Mt Shasta has directly had on my life has been the opportunity to parlay the work on the website into the chance to write hiking guidebooks for Falcon Guides. Falcon had been my favorite publisher since my time in Texas. The format and style of the books fit right in with my own way of organizing beta. I had often entertained the possibility of writing for them (or anyone else) and as providence would have it, Falcon arrived unlooked-for on my rhetorical doorstep and invited me to join their team. I have already published two books with them and a third will be officially released in a couple of weeks. The latest, Hiking Northern California, is truly my opus. I believe it will be one of the most visually stunning and informative guidebooks on the market. Of course, I am a bit partial.

Writing books was not the only foray I made into selling products. I did venture into merchandising a little bit in the year between working on books. I made hats and a friend and I made some really cool shirts. The opportunity to write my third book came up and that put the apparel business on the back burner but I may start selling the hats and shirts through my Amazon store if there is interest in my doing so. I think these things look pretty good!

Incidentally, the Hike Mt Shasta logo is intended to call back to the classic Yosemite logo that was first used back in the days of the Yosemite Park & Curry Company. It is one more connection between Yosemite and Mount Shasta:

While all of that is interesting, in the end I always come back to the mountains, and it is there that the real focus should be. It is the wilderness, the mountains, and ultimately Mount Shasta that is the purpose of this project and that is where the spotlight must be directed.

In writing for Hike Mt Shasta, I have always worked to draw attention to a variety of aspects of the mountain and the surrounding area. My favorite series of posts is, by far, the Seldom Seen series. It is my passion to ferret out those secret spots where the beauty is immense, the views sublime, and the location seemingly lost to the public mind. I always try to shed a little light on these but still leave some mystery as to the location. It is my belief that there ought to be a balance of access to information about many places but that some places should be left for people to have a journey of discovery of their own. I think it sweetens the accomplishment of having found something or somewhere of great value on your own. In a small way, it is keeping our pioneer spirit alive. I think I think about this too much.

My single favorite post I have put up is my lenticular cloud gallery. Obviously I am interested in the fantastic clouds. I think their beauty, ranging from staggering to subtle, as well as their wild unpredictability, add a great deal of mystery and spectacle to a mountain that is already mysterious and spectacular. It has been a blast chasing them down.

Some of my other personal favorite posts are:

Mount Shasta Hoodoos – I love hoodoos wherever they are found. The ones on Mount Shasta are rarely seen and quite large.

A Sign Of The Wild – Naturally I have to collect pictures of wilderness signs. I am still fixin’ to write a series of meditations on wilderness one of these days.

5 Interesting Footbridges – Trail engineering is another interest of mine (we’ve long established I am…eccentric. I am not a one trick pony though!). Bridges are a big part of that fascination.

Though the articles keep Hike Mt Shasta from getting stale, it is the trails that are the real bedrock of the site. The trails around Mount Shasta are exceptionally diverse in both character and difficulty but they all highlight the magnificent beauty of the area. We are truly blessed to have so many different types of terrain and environments around Mount Shasta. It is a year-round wonderland.

I am not going to try to add up how many countries I have gotten hits from but you can see the map. The top ten countries (aside from the U.S.) that have visited Hike Mt Shasta are:

Canada

Germany

United Kingdom

France

Japan

Australia

Brazil

Netherlands

South Korea

Russia

Belarus

OK, that’s 11 countries, but it has been endlessly fascinating to me that someone in Belarus really likes Mount Shasta. I have gotten nearly 1,000 hits from that country.

The question I get the most is about where to camp. Most of the time it is about dispersed camping specifically, but campgrounds also come into play frequently. While I am happy to field questions on anything in Mount Shasta, it is always a little deflating to talk about camping rather than hiking.

Over the years, I have been quoted and linked by several websites. An article on my site appeared in the Record Searchlight in August 2013. This mention was responsible for the site’s first 1,000 view day. Nowadays I blow past the record set then on a daily basis. How things have grown. I have also (dis)graced the pages of Backpacker as a local expert.

In some ways, reaching a million views has come at the end of an era. My trusty old Canon 50D met its demise earlier this week. That camera has been with me from the beginning of the site and on numerous adventures. It also photographed 3 books. It was a real workhorse and will be greatly missed. Fortunately, a new camera is already on its way. It’s images will begin popping up on this site soon. Perhaps it is fitting to close this little retrospective with the final image taken with my old camera. It was, like so many others, a beautiful morning. Thanks again to everyone who has made this journey with me!

I don’t want to steer Hikemtshasta.com too far away from the Northstate, but I want to add an addendum to my post on our recent trip to Yosemite. As noted, Yosemite is a place I have spent a lot of time and hiked many miles. Chief among the trails and scrambles is the Panorama Trail. Of all the places I have hiked in Yosemite and around the country, this trail has consistently ranked as my benchmark hike against which all other trails are measured. As my brother and I have always said, it is on this trail that you get “the most bang for your buck”. The trail is about 8.5 miles long is nearly all downhill, meaning that all of the magnificent sights the trail offers are obtained for a leisurely effort.

What does the Panorama Trail offer? One begins the hike at Glacier Point, which is, in my opinion, the best view anywhere. Once on the trail, it has great views for nearly the entire route. It has constantly changing perspectives on Half Dome and grand visions of the High Sierra. North Dome and the eastern end of Yosemite Valley are companions from afar on the first half of the hike while the descent down the Merced in the latter half offers spectacular yet intimate views of Vernal and Nevada Falls. In the midst of the hike, the trail passes Ililloutte Falls, a fantastic waterfall that is only seen up close on the Panorama Trail (keen observers can spot the falls’ profile on the lower part of the Mist Trail). Panorama Point is also a spectacular vista only accessible on the Panorama Trail. Other highlights along the way include Ililloutte Creek, where the water courses over smooth granite to make refreshing waterslides, the traverse along the top of the Panorama Cliffs, where majestic Yosemite Falls can be seen, and a short detour along the John Muir Trail, which is slung along a sheer cliff and boasts a great vantage to observe Nevada Falls. The hike culminates with a trip down the Mist Trail, a fitting climax to a spectacular trip down into Yosemite Valley.

(click image to enlarge and scroll gallery)

Tenaya Canyon from Glacier Point.

The Grand Staircase far below the Panorama Trail.

Ilillouette Falls and Half Dome.

Ilillouette Falls.

Peering into Ilillouette Gorge.

Half Dome, Mount Broderick, Liberty Cap and Nevada Falls.

The hurtling ferocity of Nevada Falls.

Nevada Falls.

Vernal Falls.

Vernal Falls and the Mist Trail.

For those who are ambitious, the Panorama Trail can be combined with the 4-Mile Trail, which climbs out of Yosemite Valley up to Glacier Point. For my money, the combination of these two trails forms the best hike available anywhere. The 4-Mile Trail (it is actually closer to 5 miles), though it climbs over 3,000 feet, reasonably graded and not a difficult hike. It offers sweeping views of the length of Yosemite Valley, from El Capitan, past Yosemite Falls and deep into Tenaya Canyon. The views of Yosemite Falls are particularly grand, as the perspective is constantly changing and the complexity of the three stages of the waterfall is on full display. The climb out of the Valley culminates with the sublime vista from Glacier Point. After a long break taking in the amazing sight, the excitement of the descent back to the Valley awaits on the Panorama Trail.

As I discussed here, I believe that each type of landscape has its own beauty and deserves to be enjoyed on its own merits. Still, every trail I hike, whether in my home area of Mount Shasta or in the Rockies or wherever, inevitably gets compared with the Panorama Trail. After all these years, it remains my benchmark trail (though the trip from Tuolumne Meadows to Waterwheel Falls is a close second, but that is a blog post for the future!).

Yosemite National Park. Few names evoke images as grand as those roused by that name. Few places live up to, let alone surpass, their immense reputation the way Yosemite does. Few parks have such spectacular scenery combined with deep, rich human history. Yet Yosemite manages all of these things with seemingly easy aplomb. Sure, it has its reputation for crowds but the absolutely astounding scenery overwhelms all but the most misanthropic misgivings about sharing such a marvelous natural spectacle. Yosemite is one of the places people spend their lives waiting to get to and then finish the balance remembering their experiences there. It also happens to be the place where my family began.

Clouds swirl around Half Dome.

Both of my parents’ families had histories of camping in Yosemite deep in the early 20th century. As important a heritage as that may be however, it was 50 years ago this year that my parents met for the first time while hiking to the top of Half Dome. In truth, my dad and his brother were setting out on a backpacking trip to Vogelsang, a high sierra camp in the Yosemite backcountry. My mom and her best friend were hiking up Half Dome. When, as my mom says, their “trails crossed” my dad and uncle decided a trip to the top of the great Yosemite icon was in order. The rest, as they say, is history. Since then, as before their meeting, my parents have not missed a summer of camping in Yosemite Valley. Though they usually make several trips to the park each year (often roughing it in the Ahwahnee these days), the core is always the week spent with family in Housekeeping Camp, the same campground my mom’s family has been using for 65 years. Consequently, my brother and I grew up camping there and have considered it our home away from home.

Now, my brother and I have our own families (having also been joined by a cousin who shares our love of family and Yosemite), our wives have entered into the tradition, and our children now make their own memories much the same way we did when we were youths. Each summer brings a new set of experiences. While we like to revisit old favorites, like the Panorama Trail, we are always on a quest to explore new parts of the park in general, and Yosemite Valley in particular. It is amazing how many first-rate destinations are completely unknown to the crowds who swarm the well-known attractions.

A rainy Yosemite Valley.

Last week was our annual week in the Valley and the new experience this year was rain. When my brother and I were younger, my folks would take us in July. The date has been slowly creeping forward and this year it was set for the first week in May. One week about 20 years ago had rain nearly every day, so while the older generations had had that experience, it was new for our kids. Everyone handled it with grace and flexibility, and the week turned out to be a memorable one for all involved. Now, having gotten the rainy Yosemite memories out of the way, we have decided to improve our odds at good weather and are looking at meeting up in June next year.

While the rain did dampen the anticipation of the many hikes we would take, the truth is that elements of our group still covered quite a bit of ground. Unfortunately, that group, for the most part, did not include my wife and me. Having 3.5 and 0.7 year olds puts a real kink in our ability to get on the trail. My mother eagerly seeks for us to leave the grandchildren with her, but we would rather build the kind of memories we have from growing up into our kids instead of running off to pursue our own hiking ends. Most of the time, at least. Having recalibrated our expectations, we flexed with the weather and managed to spend some quality time on the trail, though only one outing would truly qualify as a hike.

What did we actually do? Several games of “Bang” were played and there was much Lord of the Rings trivia exchanged between my nieces and nephews. I put on a Yosemite Valley-wide treasure hunt where the kids had to ride their bikes and follow clues to find a treasure I had stashed in an unknown location. There were many campfires spent drying off from the rain. Everyone was very patient with my young son who was perpetually filthy, and all the family was excited to hold my daughter, who is the newest member of the clan. But for most it was the hikes that stood out, as always. As I was setting my sights lower and taking my kids on more age-appropriate outings, my brother led the older kids on two notable trips. First was the long scramble up to the base of Ribbon Falls. I did this years ago and my brother had not, so he was eager to explore this part of the park. It was a resounding success, and the marvelous scenery and chance to see a very seldom seen part of the park was enjoyed by all. Later in the week, after my cousin’s family’s unfortunately early departure for home in Oregon, my brother also led his troop on a long hike up trailless Indian Canyon. At the top of the canyon, they intersected the North Rim Trail, visited Yosemite Point and then descended via the Yosemite Falls Trail. My brother and I had first gone up Indian Canyon around 2000, but we made the grueling mistake of following the North Rim Trail the opposite direction, going around North Dome and descending into Yosemite via the Snow Creek Trail. That trip deserves its own post sometime in the future. By all accounts, the Yosemite Falls descent is much preferable.

A seldom seen section of the Merced River.

My wife and I were much less ambitious. We took my son to the base of Lower Yosemite Falls. As short a stroll as that is, we still had to coax him forward by pointing to rocks ahead, exhorting him to climb that rock too! The next day we took both kids to Vernal Falls. We stopped just short of the Mist Trail but a fair bit beyond the bridge. There is a large flat rock extending out into the enraged river offering a wonderful view of Vernal Falls. At one time, a signed, maintained spur trail led easily out to the rock. While much of the path remains, the signs are gone and trail is obscured where it splits off of the Mist Trail. This meant that we had the awesome spot to ourselves and decided that that was far enough. Given the wet weather and the paucity of dry clothes, we reckoned that taking the two children through the mist of the Mist Trail may be a bridge too far. On the way back, I did split off from my family for a little bit. I descended below the trail as it heads back to Happy Isles and explored a surprisingly placid part of the river between the bridge and the trailhead. Across the river, I could see the four channels of Ilillouette Creek joining the mighty Merced. It is a spot seldom seen and worthy of more exploration in the future.

Slackliner over Yosemite Falls. (Enlarge this one.)

On our last full day in Yosemite my wife and I hauled our 7-month old daughter up the Yosemite Falls Trail. This was the same day my brother and his family were planning to head down the same trail, so we hoped to run into each other. My daughter, who up to this time had been an exceptionally pleasant baby, decided she did not like the switchbacks climbing out of Camp 4. Although I was supposed to carry her, she wanted mama, and my dear and patient wife carried her up the long series of switchbacks, even going so far as to take her out of the backpack and cradle her in her arms while we hiked. Needless to say we were not going to be turned back on the last, and nicest, day of the week. After long pause taking in the view at Oh My Gosh Point (it is really too awesome for words) we continued a little further and stopped at a perch above the trail with a great view of Upper Yosemite Falls. There we ate some lunch and watched as someone slacklined across the top of Yosemite Falls. We also noticed that there were two other slacklines leading to the top of Lost Arrow. Those folks are crazy.

So, all in all, it was a good week. Not the kind of week we had anticipated, but certainly a memorable one. It was rich with family, wonderful scenery and a great sense of continuity, with both the past and the future as we built our love for Yosemite into the next generation. My parents are older now and don’t get out on foot like they used to, but they still love to be in Yosemite. I think that they were deeply gratified that, on the anniversary of their meeting in the park, their family is still returning to the place where it began.

“All America lies at the end of the wilderness road, and our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. Our forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we dream.”

T.K. Whipple wrote these words in his essay “Myths of the West”, which is found in a book entitled “Study Out The Land”, a collection of his writings regarding the American West and the wilderness therein. The book is extremely difficult to find. I have only had it in my hands in the libraries of universities that have large collections of books about the West. The quote, though, is more famous than Whipple’s book because of its inclusion as the epigraph in Larry McMurtry’s excellent book “Lonesome Dove”. For those who have not read the novel, I strenuously recommend it, not just for the epic, excellent storytelling rife with adventure, humor and tragedy, but because of what it sees in its rear-view mirror and mourns. More than anything else, the book is a paean to the old west that has passed away, and to the nature of friendship.

Exiled in Texas: Cadillac Ranch, near Amarillo.

Lonesome Dove had a significant impact on my development as a writer and outdoorsman. Although I had seen the television mini-series (which is an excellent adaptation of the book and, for my money, the best western of all time) several times, I had never read the book. When life took me to Dallas, Texas for graduate school, I was ripped away from the land and mountains that I had grown up in and loved. Having spent my entire life in northern California, I had become dangerously complacent about how much the rocks and rivers of the wild had meant to me. I remember my third week (out of four years!) in Dallas, driving down a busy city street, thinking “what have I done?” Four years in the concrete labyrinth was a suddenly depressing prospect.

The Texas Caprock loomed large in the story of Gus and Woodrow.

To cope with my new reality, I stretched beyond my normal comfort zone, and began reading books that I had not bothered with before. Chief among these was Lonesome Dove. I was familiar with the story since I had seen the movie, but, as great an adaptation as the movie is, it falls short for one significant reason. The film justifiably focuses on the characters, particularly Gus and Woodrow, though the others get their due as well. However, one critically important character present in the book is missed in the movie. That is the land. The land, the place, is as much a character in the book as the people are. Being stuck in Texas, the land where much of Lonesome Dove takes place, made the book resonate with me in a way it would not have if I were back in California. I realized the wilderness is not just mountains and beauty is not just waterfalls, though those things were still preferred. Now I had a growing sense of what the land meant, what it means to me, and how the things I now missed were present in Texas too, but only in a different form and often more difficult to find.

Wichita Mountains, Oklahoma.

Having recalibrated my expectations, I set about traveling, exploring, and hiking the land I was in. Needless to say, most of the Texas landscape does not inspire a sense of awe, save for the sheer size of it (as the old adage says, “the sun is riz and the sun is set and we ain’t left Texas yet”). It was by means of these explorations that I came to love some places of unexpected beauty, one in the unyielding flatness of the Texas Panhandle (they say it is so flat you can stand on a can of tuna and see the curvature of the earth), the other across the “international” border in Oklahoma: the Caprock and the Wichita Mountains. It was in these places that I found the wildness I missed and yearned for and the solitude and wonder I had recently found I needed. I also discovered that I loved wilderness for another reason, one I had not realized was present before my reading Lonesome Dove. In addition to the adventure, isolation and beauty present in the wilds, I learned that it was in those places more than any other where I came into contact with the past. As a historian, this was a moment of great personal discovery. Through immersion in the wild land, I was immersed in the land as it was when Kit Carson or Charlie Goodnight would have seen it when they passed through. Going forward, there was a new perspective that would enable me to appreciate lands far different from the alpine grandeur of the mountains I grew up in.

Safely home: Mount Shasta from an overlook near my house.

Now I have left Texas and Oklahoma behind me and I live in a mountain paradise, the kind of place I dreamed of while being stuck in Dallas. I still think fondly of the refuges of wilderness I found and hope to return to them in the future (I did make it back to the Wichita Mountains for a day in April2012) but more than those places themselves, it was the awareness of what the wildness means to me and how essential it is to my person. Like the Whipple quote says, I live what the mountain men dreamed, a life of civilization and progress, but in the midst of modernity, it is the life untamed that they lived that resides within me.

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